Kushiel's Dart

battering ram; down came the drawbridge, and the keepers of the barbican loosed a cover of crossbow-fire. Four by four, the defenders of Troyes-le-Mont came streaming forth, reforming in neat lines and falling on the rearguard of Selig's men.
    Truly, the Skaldi were caught between hammer and anvil.
    We were all standing clear on the battlements now, forgotten targets, as the slaughter below ensued. Percy de Somerville's army fell on the Skaldi like lions, a siege's worth of pent rage in their blood, felling everything in their path.
    And at the center, Waldemar Selig drove to meet Isidore d'Aiglemort.
    I do not need to tell it; all the world knows that story. How they came together at the heart of the battle, two titans, natural-born warriors both of them. We saw, from the battlements, how the shining wedge of d'Aiglemort's cavalry thinned, growing narrower, driving still, ever inward. How the silver eagle of death, d'Aiglemort's standard, faltered at last, dipping and falling, overwhelmed beneath a sea of Skaldi.
    And Isidore d'Aiglemort, atop his black horse, fought onward, alone.
    They met, at the end; d'Aiglemort went down, the black horse slain. We thought him lost, buried under Skaldi. Then he arose, silver hair streaming beneath his helmet, a Skaldi axe in one hand. He threw it left-handed, as Selig rode up on his tall horse.
    He killed the horse.
    Always, it is the innocent who suffer, the beasts of the field, the Servants of Naamah. So it is, always, in times of war. Selig's steed went down with a crash; Selig arose cursing. And they fought, there on the plain, on foot and alone. They fought, the two of them, like lovers staging a Showing in Cereus House. There are those who think it wrong, to make such a comparison. But I was there.
    I saw.
    How many wounds Isidore d'Aiglemort had taken to get there, I cannot say. They counted, on his body, when the armor was stripped from him: Seventeen, no less, they counted. Some of those were Selig's. Not all.
    Waldemar Selig, proof against weapons. So the Skaldi believed. But while battle raged around them, he fought Isidore d'Aiglemort, the traitor Due of Terre d'Ange.
    Fought him, and died.
    I do not scruple to say it. When d'Aiglemort's sword found a gap in Selig's armor and pierced it to the hilt, I cried out my relief. Waldemar Selig sank to his knees, disbelieving. D'Aiglemort, dying, sank with him, both hands on his sword-hilt, thrusting it home.
    So they met their end.

NINETY
    After that, it was nearly a rout, despite the numbers.
    Those tribal fault-lines I had so carefully traversed through the Skaldi encampment turned into gaping chasms as bands of warriors broke away; some by the thousand, others by the hundreds, and some even fracturing steading by steading, in the scores and dozens.
    Percy de Somerville's troops pursued them with merciless efficiency. And at the center of the battlefield . . .
    "Your majesty!" I pointed toward the northeast, where a band of mounted Cruithne was cutting a swath toward the site of d'Aiglemort and Selig's battle. The standard of the black boar, the Cullach Gorrym, flew proud overhead, and at the forefront, sword swinging tirelessly, rode a familiar figure, scarlet cloak swirling from his shoulders.
    "Drustan." Ysandre touched her fingers to her lips, eyes wide with wonder. "Is it really?"
    "Oh, it is," Joscelin assured her. "That's Drustan mab Necthana!"
    His riders won through as we watched, forging a ring around the fallen figure of Isidore d'Aiglemort. To the southeast, the war-chariots of the Dalriada raced in mad circles, sowing chaos and terror in the hearts of the Skaldi, and their foot-soldiers carried the Fhalair Ban, the White Horse of Eire.
    A clamor arose closer to home, coming from the courtyard.
    Later, I learned what had happened; a desperate party of Skaldi, abandoned by Selig and caught by the unexpected emergence of the entire garrison of Troyes-le-Mont, stormed the gate ere it could be closed. They came close enough on the heels of the emerging army that the defenders of the barbican dared not shoot.
    That was how, then, they gained the courtyard.
    We could see it well enough, atop the battlements. A handful of de Somerville's D'Angeline infantry had doubled back to engage them. If the field was in chaos, not so the courtyard; a fierce battle was being waged before the inner gate, with a small knot of D'Angelines fending off thrice as many Skaldi.
    Caspar Trevalion called sharply to our archers, and half